Prime Minister’s Departure Underscores Japan’s Search for Leadership

TOKYO — Three months ago, Japan’s unpopular prime minister, Naoto Kan, seemed to have a chance at a comeback, winning applause from Japan’s now nuclear-phobic public by facing down the powerful atomic energy establishment and ordering the shutdown of a nuclear plant in a risky earthquake fault zone.

But Mr. Kan proved incapable of seizing the moment. His approval ratings quickly resumed their slide, falling into the mid-teens, even as polls showed opposition to nuclear power growing after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March. On Friday, Mr. Kan bowed to the inevitable, confirming his cabinet’s previous announcement that he would resign early next week after just 15 months in office.

In so doing, he will become the sixth Japanese prime minister to step down in the past five years, the latest in a long line of Japanese leaders who have failed to energize this nation as it tries to escape from two decades of economic and social malaise. This lack of stable leadership could prove crippling as Japan struggles to overcome the triple disaster in March of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, and also the threat of another global recession. Already deeply in debt, Japan can ill afford an expensive reconstruction program, especially at a time when a soaring yen has hurt its export-driven economy, which has been shrinking at an annual rate of 1.3 percent.

Indeed, one of the biggest complaints about Mr. Kan has been his inability to point a way toward recovery. In a sign of the indecision that seems to have paralyzed his administration, the government announced Friday that it would halve radiation levels in areas contaminated by the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant within two years. It failed to explain how it would do so, or how it would pay the considerable costs.

“Mr. Kan is the outsider-turned-prime minister who should have provided leadership,” said Takayoshi Igarashi, a professor of urban policy and a longtime friend of Mr. Kan who serves as an adviser to his cabinet. “The paralysis in Japan just keeps getting worse because leaders cannot answer the people’s expectations.”

Mr. Kan, 64, was supposed to be different. In a nation where so many national politicians are second-, third- and even fourth-generation lawmakers, he was the rare self-made man. He entered public affairs four decades ago as an aide to a prominent feminist leader and rose to national attention when as health minister in the 1990s, he exposed his ministry’s cover-up of a scandal involving H.I.V.-tainted blood products.

When he became prime minister in June 2010, T-shirts appeared with the slogan “Yes, We Kan” — anticipating that he would break the mold of the ineffectual Japanese political leader and shake up the sclerotic status quo.

Instead, Mr. Kan followed an all-too-familiar pattern, starting out with approval ratings above 60 percent but squandering it amid rising criticism that he was failing to show leadership.

“This is a nation groping in the dark for what its new goals should be,” said Koichiro Kokubun, a philosophy professor at Takasaki City University of Economics. “Prime Minister Kan’s biggest failure was not pointing a direction.”

Of course, Mr. Kan faced a host of deep and formidable problems in office that would have challenged any leader, even without the earthquake and the tsunami, which left 20,000 dead or missing, and the resulting nuclear accident. Those difficulties, a moribund economy, an aging population and paralyzing divisions within both the governing Democratic Party and Parliament, will also hinder his successor.

Photo

Prime Minister Naoto Kan at a news conference on his resignation.Credit
Toru Hanai/Reuters

But political analysts and even Mr. Kan’s allies say that Mr. Kan’s failure has also been at least partly his own doing.

In recent months, Mr. Kan has faced constant criticism for what many here see as his impulsive handling of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima. At the same time, his lone-wolf style and refusal to engage in Japan’s requisite consensus-building have alienated almost every major player in the political establishment: bureaucracy, the news media, even members of his own party.

Even his supporters say his biggest liability was an inability to communicate with the public. Like many of his predecessors, he was often compared unfavorably with a previous iconoclastic leader, Junichiro Koizumi, who proved much more successful as prime minister in his five-year term, which ended in 2006.

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While Mr. Koizumi had mastered the art of short news conferences, tossing out pithy sound bites that resonated with voters, Mr. Kan refused to give such impromptu briefings. Mr. Koizumi built a populist appeal that he used to defeat a powerful interest group, the post office, which had become a crucial cog in the old-style political machines that Mr. Koizumi was trying to dismantle.

By contrast, Mr. Kan’s crippling inability to connect with voters was most clearly seen in his failed effort to challenge another entrenched interest, the nuclear industry, despite the clear public sentiment against atomic power. Mr. Kan got off to a strong start in May by ordering the shutdown of the vulnerable Hamaoka nuclear power plant. He also won popular applause by criticizing the cozy ties between the nuclear industry and regulators, who are widely blamed for allowing the Fukushima plant to operate without adequate protection from tsunamis.

However, Mr. Kan failed to persuade the public that his new antinuclear stance represented a serious change of heart by a leader who before March supported building new nuclear plants. Worse, analysts say, he failed to lay out a detailed road map of how Japan might realistically rid itself of nuclear power without all the lights going out.

“He could have gotten out in front of this issue, but he didn’t communicate,” said Gerald Curtis, a professor of Japanese politics at Columbia University.

Mr. Kan’s adviser, Mr. Igarashi, said: “Prime Minister Kan never seemed to grasp the importance of communication. I told him and told him, but he had this belief that a man should be judged by actions, not words.”

On Friday, Mr. Kan made what might be his final action in office, confirming that he was finally stepping down. Indeed, this has been one of the most protracted resignations in recent memory; Mr. Kan first promised to resign in June, but then tried to prolong his time in office by vowing to pass disaster-related bills first.

In a sign of deep divisions within the party, no less than seven candidates have put their hands up to replace him in an internal party vote to be held Monday. Whoever replaces Mr. Kan will face a divided Parliament where the upper house is in the hands of the opposition Liberal Democrats, who seem intent to force an early election by blocking passage of whatever agenda he puts forward.

“I don’t see any of the problems changing,” said Professor Curtis of Columbia. “If anything, the next guy will be the shortest-lived prime minister yet.”

A version of this news analysis appears in print on August 27, 2011, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Leadership Vacuum Looms as Japan’s Big Threat. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe